


Folie à Deux

by Abb_the_Crab



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Complete, F/F, Flowers, Hanahaki Disease, Homophobia, Lesbians, POV Second Person, Schizophrenia, Snowdrops, Two Shot, Vomiting, white roses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-04-07 04:57:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14073375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abb_the_Crab/pseuds/Abb_the_Crab
Summary: You’ve never even heard her voice, yet for some reason, you’re coughing up a new blood-soaked bouquet every day for her.





	1. Blood-soaked Bouquets

When the family down the road first moved in, your mother told you to bring a pie over. So you did. You took your little sister’s hand and looked both ways and crossed the street, carrying a pie in the cloth bag your mother had given you. 

You rang the doorbell, and a silent girl with an aura that could only be described as freezing cold, even in the middle of summer answered. She looked at you. You stared back. Lee grabbed your bag and held out the pie. The girl nodded and went to get her mother. The mother thanked you and closed the door. You went home.

When the school year finally rolled around, the cold girl was on your bus- still is, in fact. You said hello, and she waved, never dropping the calm, composed look on her face. Never frowning, never smiling. The girl felt cold. Cold as the snow her hair so closely resembles. You decided to call her ‘Snow Girl’ in your head, because you couldn’t think of a nickname that suited her more. 

At school, you learned Snow Girl’s name was Sasayaki. It means whisper, apparently. 

You were never in the same class, but you know her name because you once heard her teacher telling her to come back to the gym.

You doubt she’d ever want to know yours. 

When Christmastime came, she caught you staring at her during the assembly. It was then you found out that her eyes were as cold as the rest of her, piercing you with a gaze that felt as if it was turning you into an icicle. 

At your eighth grade “graduation”, your best friend Caleb told you to “Go talk to her! Make more friends!” and pushed you in her direction before going off to chat with Shimo about the new Pokemon game. 

You stumbled a bit, teetering on the wedged shoes your big sister had made you wear, before straightening up and fidgeting with the folds of your dress and taking long strides toward her, head bent down. When you looked up, she was walking away with her parents. Just your luck.  
A tickling feeling in your chest, one attributed to disappointment had begun to form.

When you got home, that tickling feeling made you cough white rose petals speckled with blood into the sink. 

And instantly, you knew what was going on- your sister was going to be a nurse, after all. She talked about this condition all the time.

Hanahaki. There were flowers growing inside her lungs.

But for who? 

You were only thirteen. Your only friends were Caleb, Miss Stepanov (The student teacher) and by extension, Shimo.

None of which you were romantically interested in. Caleb was your friend, you didn’t know Shimo very well and Miss Stepanov was much, much too old for you to be in love with.

There was another tickly feeling, and this time, it was snowdrop petals. Snowdrops speckled with blood. A pure white and a sickly red. Like polka dots. Blood red polka dots.

Reds spots and a white background.

White.

And this time, you realized who it is. There’s only one person you know who’s associated with that colour. Sure, Caleb’s hair looks white, but it’s actually a very, very pale blonde.

But Sasayaki’s hair is as pure and as white as the snowdrop petals before your blood stained them.

And you knew. It’s her.

It’s kind of obvious, you thought. The way you watched her mannerisms on the bus, the way you watched at your window to see her walking around outside. The way you ducked and blushed and averted your eyes when she glanced in your general direction. 

You’re fourteen when you when you cough up your first full flower.

What makes it worse is that it’s the first day. And Sasayaki is in your class.

You’ve never even heard her speak, yet it seems like you’re retching a new bouquet soaked with blood for her. 

How poetic. 

It seems your school is ripe with cases of Hanahaki. Every time you walk into the bathroom to cough up your daily rose, daisy, or snowdrop, it seems there are girls doing the same thing. 

Yet none of them have flowers spewing from their mouths for someone so cold.  
If your parents were to find out, you would be thrown out. Even with the yelling, the screaming and the burns, it’s better than staying on the streets.

You know it would happen. The voices in your head tell you so. “You’re a dyke,” they whisper, cruelly. “A stupid fucking dyke. Don’t you know that she won’t love you back, no matter how many roses you puke? Mother and Father would be so displeased if they knew their second daughter was a dumbass dyke, now, wouldn't they? Mother’s already gone loco, you’ll just push her waaaaaaaaaaay over!”

When you wake up to go to school one day, you realize you don’t care. Fuck the voices.

You stand at the bus stop that day, and you look over at Sasayaki. She carries herself, like always, with confidence. If only you could be like that. Maybe she’d actually look at you. The girl is staring off into the distance. She’s thoughtful. Probably smart. You know that because Shimo told Caleb and Caleb told you. If only you were that smart. Maybe then she’d like you. 

Just staring at her causes you to cough, and out of your mouth comes a full, bloody stem of jasmine. 

It sits there on the sidewalk, among the dried leaves. 

The girl blinks, obviously taken aback. “Are you alright?” She asks, in a calm, composed tone. You nod, and hearing her voice- such a smooth, lovely, alto- a perfect companion to your mezzo-soprano, you can’t help but think it’s so beautiful and that just makes you retch another flower. This one hurts. It has thorns. A white, blood-speckled rose joins the jasmine florets on the pavement. You look at her and step back, still coughing. 

She tilts her head to the side, and her white hair- her gorgeous white hair, pure as a fresh coat of clean snow, and it has feathers, her hair has feathers, how come you didn’t notice her hair has feathers? And her face looks as if she’s confused, oh god, you’re embarrassed, and words are spilling out of your mouth as you cough and cough and cough and she’s hitting your back now, why is she hitting your back? The petals are coming out on the ground and you’re gasping for air, the world looks fuzzy and now she’s hugging you- why is she hugging you? And you feel your stomach being sort of punched, five times. One thrust, two thrust, three, four, five and now she’s hitting your back again and finally, finally you can breathe and you’re gasping for air, sucking it into your vine-infested lungs. 

She’s holding you under your armpits, and you’re gasping and hiccupping, and holy shit this feels good, oxygen feels nice right now. 

“Are you alright?” Sasayaki asks you, and your breathing, your intake of that sweet, sweet oxygen stops, right along with your heart. 

“Yeah,” you manage to get out. “I’ll be good.” You slowly lift yourself out of her arms, and you flip your long, longer than Sasayaki’s hair behind your shoulders. 

She regards you with suspicion. Fair enough. After all, it’s not everyday someone chokes on jasmine and white roses front of your very eyes. 

When the bus comes to pick you two up, you sit down next to her. It’s nerve racking, but hell, why not. 

There are so many reasons why not.

And so many reasons why. 

To get to know Sasayaki better, you decide to pepper her with questions. 

Her favourite colour is green. Just like your eyes.  
She has no favourite bands.  
Her sign is a Leo. A lion. You’d bet anything that underneath all that cold, there’s a passionate ice storm.  
Her favourite subject is History. Perfect for such a smart girl.  
Her least favourite is Phys. Ed.  
She likes long walks and quiet spaces and reading and fish.

She responds to all your inquiries quietly (like her name, a whisper is how she talks) and calmly. You don’t feel that icy aura anymore. 

You feel closer to her.

Over the next months, you begin to love her even more. You didn’t know how that was possible.

You love her so much, you’ve bought a pretty white rose and a card and white chocolate- her favourite and you’re walking up to her.

And then you see it. She’s holding hands and laughing. With a strange boy, you don’t know him. And so the white rose drops and you run to the bathroom and what seems like a million roses pour from your mouth into the toilet and no matter how hard you scrub your face the blood won’t come off and the voices are laughing, they’re taunting you and you want to scream. 

Little does she know, in the bathroom above her, is Snow Girl, retching sunflowers, hoping she loves her boyfriend. But she knows. But she wants to deny it.  
And she’ll deny it until the day she shuffles off this mortal coil. 

They call it Folie à Deux, the madness of two.


	2. Electric

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flowers inside your lungs tend to be annoying, especially nine years after they’ve started to grow. Especially after the only way to get rid of them has vanished.

You can’t breathe. Ever since you were fourteen, you couldn’t breathe properly. There were sunflowers, black-eyed Susans and pale yellow roses growing in your lungs. You tried to hide them at first, but your parents noticed (They would notice their daughter’s constant cough, they would notice their daughter’s blood in the sink, they would notice the flower petals that litter your room, no matter how many times you tidy it.)

So they sat you down and asked you about it and you lied. You lied.

And then you did a little more research, just out of interest. Reading through dozens of websites, looking at treatments, millions of articles- and then you found out about the fact that Hanahaki Disease, the malady of unrequited love would kill you within a year without surgery, drug treatment or of course- confession.

So you went back to your parents and explained to them that you had overlooked a little- and then of course they said to just confess. But it wasn’t that easy, it would never be that easy. She wouldn’t even look at you and rightfully so- and then one day she had stopped showing up to school.

And of course, of course it was just your luck- her family had moved out of their house. And a couple months ago, she had suddenly just stopped talking to you. It was suspicious- she hadn’t texted you back, returned your calls, and when you had knocked on her door, her twig of a little sister who was normally so sweet and polite had taken one look at you and slammed it in your face with a look of absolute fury. You didn’t go back after that- you may have been stubborn, but you weren’t suicidal.

And so you went back home and tried to call her again- tough luck, the number wasn’t working. She had probably blocked yours. You tried her social media- blocked on every single one. You made a ghost account- hers was now private, and she was pretty paranoid about who saw her pictures and the like. Actually, she was pretty paranoid, period.

There was no way you could ever see her again.

And so you said to your parents that she was simply gone, and they trusted you on that. So you went to the doctor, who simply looked at you with that pitying look you’ve seen so many times on so many people and you got a prescription and a recommendation for surgery. 

You would be taking that awful, disgusting medicine for years on end and you would be opened up five more times. Until today.

Today, you sit on the floor and you cry. You’re at the hospital and you’re crying. Which isn’t uncommon in hospitals, but you have no reason to be crying. You didn’t get diagnosed with anything horrible or rare or terminal, your treatment is working fine, but you just have to face it. This is going to be eternal. For the rest of your life, you’ll be getting opened up every year, you’ll be taking the same damn pills and nasal spray and you’ll be dealing with the same damn heartache and what-could-have-been. The torture will never end. Because you just couldn’t work up the courage to talk to her. How frustratingly poetic. 

And so, you wipe your eyes and prepare to get up- but burst into tears again. What the hell is wrong with you? You’re usually so calm, composed- and yet here you are. Crying about a struggle that so many others face with a smile. 

“You okay there?” Comes a voice with a slight Southern accent from behind you. There’s a warm hand on your shoulder. “Anything you wanna- oh my God.” 

You whirl around and you come face to face with her. Blair. 

She’s just as shocked as you are, stuttering and stammering something about apologizing and that she has somewhere she needs to be and you don’t really know what to say either. What were you supposed to say to the person whose heart you broke into a million tiny pieces and stomped on for good measure?

You shouldn’t say anything. You had hurt her. You had hurt her badly.

She shouldn’t say anything. She had hurt you. She had hurt you badly.

But for some reason, you wipe your tears away and whisper, in a soft, husky voice “No. Stay.”.

And for some reason, she sits down next to you and asks in an identical volume and tone “Why?”.

“I don’t know,” You say, and you realize with a pang your braid has come loose and there’s strands of white hair all wet from your tears, but why are you worrying about your appearance, when there are so many other things to worry about? “But I missed you very much.”

“Yeah,” She says, swallowing, green eyes darting around. She has such magnificent green eyes, the colour of malachite. They say eyes are the window to the soul, if her eyes are that wonderful, then what is her soul like? You want to know, you desperately want to know. Blair closes her eyes. “I missed ya loads.”

Her speech hasn’t changed one bit. She was always very casual. She didn’t care. You wish you didn’t care either.

“Listen,” She says, grimacing, tapping her tiny foot on the linoleum floor and biting the skin off her lip. It’s a familiar stance, one you remember so well from high school. She usually bit her lip until it bled when she was nervous. You can see patches from where the skin is gone, replaced by scabs. “It was wrong of me to cut you off just because I got hung up on the fact you didn’t love me back. Rule number one, never fall in love with a straight girl.” She says, looking away, obviously uncomfortable. More than uncomfortable, more like slightly humiliated. 

Your heart shatters even more than you thought humanly possible. “No, no, I…” You shake your head, your pulse beating like a drum. “Blair, I’m gay.”

 

She looks shocked, then she chuckles. It’s that low, grim, laugh you remember from so many years ago. “Never pegged ya for it, I hafta admit. And it’s Ayre, now.” 

Ayre. The name means fire and it’s typically a name used for males, but it better suits her, you think. She did mention the fact that Blair wasn’t her real name a couple times, but you never pried. You didn’t think she would want to talk about it. 

You shrug. “As you wish.” Ayre nods. She looks slightly uncomfortable, but that’s fair. It wasn’t every day you reconnected with someone you had such a complicated relationship with, in fact, it was quite unusual. 

“So,” The blonde spitfire begins, drumming her fingers on the cold floor and exhaling through her mouth. “What’re you here for, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Blood rushes to your pale, slightly hollowed cheeks. You identify the emotion rising up within you as embarrassment. She doesn’t know. Do you want her to know? You’re honestly unsure. Which is strange, because you’re usually very decisive. She’s looking at you strangely, and you blush even more.This is alien, very alien. You have to make a decision, quickly. 

She’s attracted to you, or was at one point. You’re still attracted to her. You open your mouth to speak. You know what you’ll tell her. 

But before you can say anything, before you give her the truth you’ve wanted to tell for so long, she coughs. The green-eyed beauty, at least, you think she’s beautiful- hacks up a daisy. A full, bloody daisy sits on the floor next to you. 

Blair- Sorry, Ayre looks away. And you realize the daisy is the same colour as your hair, white as the snow that blankets the ground outside.

And so you decide not to say anything. You instead do something crazy, something impulsive, something absolutely insane and something completely out of character. 

You kiss her. 

You lean forward, brushing aside the daisy soaked with Ayre’s blood and you pull her toward you, gently. And you press your lips to hers. 

Ayre doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t just sit there, stunned. No, she puts her soft, slender hands around your cheeks, breaking away for a moment, looking into your eyes with the most radiant expression. She kisses you right back. 

You feel like you’re on Cloud Nine. There’s this rush, a rush you haven’t felt in so long, and your lips are buzzing, it’s an almost electric sensation. You place your hands behind her head- her hair is so soft, so light, it feels so nice in between your fingers. She did always take wonderful care of it. 

This feels amazing. Like a high, one that leaves you desperate and begging for more. It’s like someone’s flipped a switch in your head, and suddenly you’re seeing in colour. Everything seems so much more vibrant, and you can’t stop looking at her. 

When you finally pull away, much to your chagrin, you’re holding each others’ hands, breathing heavily. Your heart is thumping like you’ve just run a marathon. 

“I always wanted something like this,” She whispers, almost breathless and with a flushed face. 

“Me too.” You sigh. “Me too.” Your body is trembling with excitement like a leaf in the wind. “I can’t believe it’s really you.” 

And because she just can’t resist and frankly, neither can you, you dive in again until you’re just hanging on to each other for dear, sweet life. 

Suddenly, the tingling, heavy feeling in your chest disappears. You feel the flowers wither, the roots that had so long ago implanted themselves inside of you snap, and the petals fall. You both look at each other with mortified expressions, let go of each other, and begin to cough as dozens upon dozens of wilted flowers and dried leaves, stems pour from your mouths.

But somehow, amidst the hacking, coughing confusion, your hand finds hers. And your fingers touch. And even though there are dead sunflowers, black-eyed Susans and pale once-yellow roses coming out of your lungs, even though there’s a slight amount of blood, for the first time since you were fourteen, you feel complete.

Whole again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are. Couple months later I finally finish it, good grief.

**Author's Note:**

> Gonna be a two part series. Nothing too big. I really like the relationship dynamic between Blair and Sasayaki, so I made a Hanahaki fic! 
> 
> Sasayaki actually belongs to my friend, she ain't mine. Blair is mine, however. Please don't reproduce these characters. 
> 
> Comment with constructive criticism!
> 
> ~Mae


End file.
